Jess Jonassen says she and her Australian cricket teammates are lucky to have a high-level of coaching and psychological support to meet fitness goals, after a key player was left out of South Africa’s Women’s T20 World Cup squad.
Speaking to ABC Sport, Jonassen talked about conditions in South Africa, Australia’s opponents in Group 1 and the furore over the hosts, who left spinning all-rounder Dane van Niekerk out of their squad for the tournament after she finished 18 seconds outside a time target for a 2 kilometre time trial.
Van Niekerk is the only South African women’s cricketer to take more than 50 wickets and score more than 1,500 runs in T20 internationals.
The 29-year-old has 194 caps for her country across all international formats.
Asked for her reaction to the story of van Niekerk’s omission, Jonassen replied: “[It’s] pretty disappointing to be honest with you.
“I understand that there are different requirements for selection … but from the outside it’s all well and good to have goals and targets for players to meet, but as long as there’s some adequate support in all areas to help that player achieve those goals.
“From my understanding that hasn’t necessarily been the case [with van Niekerk] – ‘this is what you have to achieve and good luck trying to do it’.
“I guess we [Australian cricketers] are pretty fortunate in our set-up that we have strength and conditioning coaches to help us reach those targets.
“We also have nutritionists to help us with the diet side but more importantly we’ve got psychologists to help us with the mental side – a lot of the time that’s the biggest battle.
“Once you start to unlock things mentally and psychologically, there are a lot of things that can start to fall into place. It’s really disappointing … she [van Niekerk] is a world-class player and someone that when she’s in that South African team they’re a completely different outfit.
Jonassen said Cricket Australia has changed its approach to fitness communication.
“There’s been a shift over a number of years from … not necessarily trying to manufacture or create the perfect athlete, but having the understanding that everyone’s biological make-up is different, everyone’s strengths are different,” she said.
“Some people are power athletes and not the greatest runners, whereas there are others who are the opposite.
“It’s sort of a matter of having an individualised approach to it – obviously there are certain requirements you’ve got to meet, to play international cricket, but it’s not one sort of fitness target for example, skin-fold targets are not the be-all and end-all. It’s small part of a bigger picture.”
SA pitches could be ‘on slower side’
Australia’s women’s team has not previously toured South Africa, so players will hope to make use of the pre-tournament time including practice games against India and Ireland.
“There’ll be a bit of getting to understand the conditions and matching our gameplans and our styles to what’s going to help us achieve those victories — and hopefully holding the World Cup at the end of the month,” Jonassen said.
“I’ve watched a bit of the South African Twenty20 comp, and the wickets have looked a little bit on the slower side. I think South Africa, West Indies and India just completed a tri-series as well.
“Admittedly they were in Pretoria, which isn’t a city that these games are going to be held for the World Cup, but the wickets were a little slower and took a bit of spin.”
Jonassen agreed that New Zealand were the “biggest threat” in Australia’s group, which also includes hosts South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
[They’ve got] some really quality players who have been over here for I think over a week now as well. They’re all fully used to the conditions I’m sure, and they’re ready to go as well. They’ve just had a couple of games against England prior to our official practice matches.”
Despite the controversy over van Niekerk, Jonassen said the home side had to be taken seriously.
“There’s a home World Cup, knowing what it’s like you want to perform well you want to do what you can for the home crowd and sometimes that home crowd advantage can help you get over the line in the tight moments and they’ve still got some quality match-winners as well.
“We’ve definitely got to be wary of them … and there’s also a lot of unknown with our other opponents as well – a lot of new players in the last few years since we last came across them.”
Discussion about this post